Dallas Stars Blog

Toby Petersen learns if you break the glass, you can make some new fans

Stars forward Toby Petersen had a strange moment in practice Friday when he shot a puck that hit the glass behind the Stars net and forced the pane to shatter. Petersen said it was just a snap shot and that he was shocked when the glass fell on a couple of fans standing behind it.

“Normally, you just sort of smile, but there were two people back there and I was pretty concerned for them,” Petersen said.

The two fans were treated by the Stars training staff. Fan Adam Bath sent this e-mail detailing what happened.

“I went to my first ever Stars practice today with my mom. We were standing directly behind Kari’s goal all practice and when they started practicing shooting on our end, Toby Peterson shot a puck that hit the glass we were standing at and shattered it, even sent the puck right through. Glass fell all over us, my mom’s hand got knicked up a bit and glass hit my head. I wasn’t injured in all of this but the team took my mom to the equipment room and bandaged her up. During all of this, Toby Peterson came back to check on her and she got to talk to him some. Adam Burish and others even came over to the broke glass to check on us and make sure we were ok.

“I didn’t think to go back with her so I didn’t get to meet him until later but he signed his practice stick and a puck and she got a Dallas Stars hoodie, all for free. I managed to get the puck that went through the glass and I got it signed not only by Peterson but by Steve Ott, who was also practicing shooting when that happened. I had Ott sign it “Check NHL.com”! I thought that was very cool. I also told Peterson to bring that shot to the game tomorrow night (vs. the Bruins) and he, in a very self-deprecating manner, said “Yeah but get it in net eh?” Was very awesome. Toby was very nice and the way the team treated us after that was just superb.”

Petersen, who is not known for a big shot, said he doesn’t remember breaking the glass before and said the incident was just a fluke.

“I’m just glad everything worked out all right,” he said.

Here’s
href="http://i613.photobucket.com/albums/tt218/Elysian893/IMG_20111230_114624.jpg">one of the pictures Bath took. and here is
href="http://i613.photobucket.com/albums/tt218/Elysian893/IMG_20111230_115858.jpg">one of the stick and puck signed by Petersen.